Portal
by Alex Amari
Summary: Aperture Science needs a new test subject and Amelia is pulled into the fray. As she tries not to be killed and wonders about cake, someone else is trying to find out more about her and why she's there... Please Read and Review!


A/N: And another little brainbaby that desired to be put on here! As I've said before, these are just little things on my computer that I write for fun. There's much to be desired in my writing, so please tell me what I need to do to fix it!

"Ohhh…." She sat up, finding herself in a small room with glass walls, a larger room surrounding it. "Whah…?" She was on a pod-shaped bed, the immediate furniture being a toilet and a radio. She had absolutely no recollection of getting to the room, or of anything before it. ["Good morning."] A computerized voice came over the speakers, causing her to jump. ["Welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. You, [subject name here] are our newest experiment—I mean test runner—that will run the Aperture Science Portal Test. If you look to your left, you will see a blue portal open up. Walk through it."] Sure enough, a portal opened up and she regarded it with hesitancy. 'What the heck…?' she mused. Eventually, she decided that she may be able to go to wherever she came from if she just did as she was told. She went through the portal. ["Very good. Now, look to your right. Go through that door."] She went to do so, and found herself in another room with another glass box within, containing an odd-looking arm-shaped device. ["This is the Aperture Science Portal Device. A door will open up in three…two…one…"] The door opened and she went to the device. Sliding it over her arm, it tightened and formed to her skin. "What the hell?" she jumped. ["Do not panic. It is just…getting used to you. This device shoots both blue and orange portals. Go into one, and you come out the other at the same velocity. I advise caution, though; this is the same whether or not it's at the same angle."] She nodded, not knowing what the hell she was getting into. She vaguely wondered what Aperture Science was around for, anyway.

She was then instructed to go through the first testing room. "How many of these are there?!" she muttered. Immediately, an egg-shaped spider-thing opened up and began to shoot at her, much to her surprise. Diving behind a wall, she assessed the situation. "What are they trying to do, kill me?!" she decided to try the gun out and shot a portal up near the high ceiling. Then, she shot one under the sentry. It fell and shot spastically as it landed on its side. At last, it lay still and deactivated. She sighed. "All I gotta do is get to the elevator. Easy, right?" She looked up and saw that there were several more of the sentries, aiming at her with a chorus of ["There you are."] She dove down and fired portals left and right, waiting until the shooting had stopped. Once done, she sighed, walking over to the elevator. "That was weird." ["Well done. You have done as expected. Now run the next chamber. Good luck."] The last was said with an underlying malice. 'Why do I get the feeling that this can't end well?' she mused.

The next nineteen test chambers ran similarly, with uses of weighted cubes on pressure pads and energy balls portaled to the right place, to pools of acid below what a trapeze artist would call a suicidal obstacle course. Eventually, she got off the elevator onto a moving platform, waiting to see where she was taken. While she went through a door that opened up into a fire pit, she freaked out while the voice returned. ["Well done, test subject. You have completed the test. Now you have the honor of being incinerated for your achievements. GOODBYE."] She looked around with a mantra of "shit shit shit shit shit shit shit…" trying to calm down, she saw that she could fire a portal at the opposite wall, and, doing so, fired another one at the wall next to her. Jumping through, she found herself in the underbelly of the chambers. Surrounded by pipes and transportation tubes, she followed one, hoping to get out. Distantly, she heard the voice trying to tell her to come back, that it was just kidding, that there would be cake if she returned. "What the _hell_ kind of cake is worth it…" she muttered, finding herself right where she started.

After going three different ways with the same result, she gave up and yelled, "And how the flying fuck am I supposed to get out of here?!?!?!?!?!" "Keep it down, do you want her to find you?" a new voice asked from behind her. She whipped around to see the man, holding the gun up as if in a threat. "Who are you?!" she asked, her voice shrill in her own ears. "What am I doing here? Did you do this?!" he held up his arms, showing that he had a portal gun as well. He was dressed in the same orange jumpsuit that she wore, and he looked as if he hadn't slept in weeks. "Easy, babe. I'm in the same situation as you. How long ago did you wake up here?" she thought, her memory cloudy. "A-a few hours ago. Maybe more, I'm not sure. I almost got incinerated." He nodded. "So that's what happens when you finish the test. I gave up and burst down the door at the tenth chamber." The nametag on his suit read, "Eric". She took a deep breath. "What the hell is going on…" he shrugged. "Hell if I know. I've been down here for at least five days, though. Can you remember anything?" she shook her head. "Nothing. I don't even know my name." he looked at her nametag (which she just noticed existed). "Well, Amelia…" she nodded, that sounded right to her. "I think we were drugged. Most of it's worn off for me, but I can't remember how I got here. All I know was I was getting off of work, and then…" he gestured to their surroundings.

"So now what?" she asked, wondering if they were being watched. "Well, she can't see us in here, so if we stay out of the chambers, we might get out of here. We should stick together, seeing as we're in the same boat, huh?" she nodded once more. She took a step forward, her knees giving out from underneath her. "Woah, are you okay?" he asked. "Y-yeah." She answered, closing her eyes. "Just need a second." He put a hand on her back, then asked, "How old are you, kid? Do you know?" She thought for a minute, then answered, "I think…nineteen. Yeah, that sounds right." He sighed. "Just a kid. Probably still in college." "And you? You don't look much older than me." She looked up at him and noticed that, while his longish hair was dark, his eyes were a startling shade of sky blue. "Come on," he said, helping her up. "We gotta move. The way out of this area is over here, if I remember right…" He led the way. "You didn't answer my question." He smiled. "I'm twenty-four. Here we are." He opened a service door, and led her through to another room, where several lasers were pointed at their heads. ["Target acquired."] He ducked down, taking her with him, shooting a few portals to get them out of the way. As peace returned, he sighed. "There we are. Man, I hate turrets!" They continued on, shooting a portal every once in a while to get past certain obstacles. "So, what was your life like before coming here?" she asked as they went down a hallway for service operators. "Why are you so interested in my personal life, Kitten?" she frowned. "That's _not_ my name. And I just need to hear something to distract me from the fact that I've been kidnapped by a psychopath computer and I don't even know who I am. So talk." He struck her as the type that would probably be sitting in the back of a classroom, sleeping or trying to get the attention of his buddy across the room. 'Though,' she admitted to herself, 'I remember spending most of my class time doodling on my notebook.' She smiled, happy that she'd remembered something about her life.

"Well," he began. "I wasn't the nicest guy, got in my fair share of trouble, but I was a pretty good student. Graduated, went to a two-year college, now I work in my older brother's bookstore. Surprising, huh?" She smiled. "A little. Literacy doesn't seem to be one of your strong suits, no offense." He grinned. "Not much taken. I like to surprise people. Think of a convict spouting Shakespeare. It doesn't happen very often." "I can see that." They went through a series of pipes and mechanics that seemed like a wall to anyone but a contortionist. After nearly getting scalded three times, she found herself in a sort of nest area, containing some supplies such as food, blankets and firearms, and a few random things like magazines and cheap dime-store paperbacks. "How on earth did you get all this?" He smiled. "It was here when I got here, I only continued it. The writing on the wall over there was from the first person that started it, saying that it's a safe haven, that no cameras can even hear us, and that if you stay here, you have to leave things for the next few people. So, I've kept to it." "Wow." She sat against the wall and worked to remove the portal gun, frowning when, like before, it stayed stubbornly attached to her arm. After a minute of fighting with it, a pair of hands moved her lone one out of the way and pressed a hidden switch. The gun released, and she rubbed at her arm thoughtfully. "Thank you." She muttered. "No problem, we gotta help each other in our situation." They stayed silent for a while, and she yawned greatly, contemplating what little of her life she remembered. She knew that she was a high school graduate, and that she lived alone. But other than that, nothing. She yawned again, and he chuckled. "You should get some sleep, Kitten; it'll help that drug wear off." She frowned. "That's_ not_ my name." "Fine then, _Amelia_." He retorted. "I think it's just Mia, now that I think about it." She replied. He leaned back against the wall, putting his hands behind his head. "Okay, whatever. You should still sleep, though." She shook her head. "After that? I've gone through enough near-death experiences, I'll be lucky to sleep in a year." "Come on, please? I'll even stay up and keep watch." She gave up with a sigh. "Fine, I give. But if I die, I'm haunting your ass till you die of old age." He laughed. "Fair enough." She leaned her head back against the wall, falling asleep way faster than she expected.

Eric felt something hit his arm and looked down. There Mia was, fast asleep. He chuckled lightly and pulled one of the blankets that he'd stolen from the supply closet upstairs over her small frame. Now that he was sure that she wouldn't kill him, he was finally able to get a good look at her. Wisps of her reddish-brown hair fell in her face from the ponytail that she had it in. Dark lashes stood out against her pale skin, but the thing that struck him the hardest was her eyes. When she had first seen him and was threatening him with the portal gun, the first thing that he noticed was her eyes. They were such a startling shade of emerald green that he was instantly reminded of a cat's eyes, which led to the nickname. She had even curled up like a cat would, as well, instinctly moving towards the closest source of heat: Eric. He could have laughed aloud, but he didn't risk waking his companion. They had absolutely nothing in common. She struck him as a girl that probably made straight 'A's to impress her strict parents, while he was the guy who skipped classes regularly just to prove that he could. In a normal situation, they wouldn't even eat lunch at the same table. He relaxed, getting comfortable, and felt something catch hold of his arm. Looking down once more, he saw that Mia had circled her arms around his, using it as a makeshift pillow. He smiled and moved said arm out of her grasp, putting it around her shoulders instead. She then moved her arms around his ribcage, completely comfortable. 'Amazing what you can see when someone is at their most instinctual stage,' he mused, settling in for his vigil.


End file.
